Page 43 of May: Bloom & Bane

Her warm hand brushes the cold bone of my cheek, and every nerve I have left screams at the contact. I expected disgust to set in now that the immediate danger has passed. But when I look down, I don’t see fear.

I see fire.

Her eyes aren’t searching for the beautiful male I was; they are fixed on the monster I became to save her.

“You’re not afraid?” I murmur.

“Why would I be?” Her thumb brushes over the vorí where my lip should be. (Bone)

My hand flexes against her waist. Skeletal fingers sharp enough to tear through flesh catch on the thin fabric of her nightgown.

I could hurt her so easily like this.

I should let go.

But the need to cover her in my scent until the stench of the Horsemen is gone consumes every rational thought I have.

She smells like Famine, the voice rasps.

I carefully slide my hands around her lower back and pull her flush against me.

She gasps, her legs instinctively wrapping as far around my waist as they’ll reach.

I bury my face in her hair and inhale.

Wrong. It’s all wrong. Underneath the honey and vanilla and peonies that are ním to breathe. Four signatures. Four trespasses.

Bronze. Hunger. Frost. Disease.

The growl that leaves me isn’t a decision.

“Sage?” Her hands go still against my shoulders. “What is it?”

“They’re on you.” I shake my head as if it’ll get rid of their scent. “Their scent. It’s on your skin, and I—” I drag my nose along the crown of her hair, down to her temple. She shivers in response. “I need it gone. I need you to smell like us again.”

She tilts her head back, baring the line of her throat. “Then you’d better fix it.”

Our mate wants our scent. Cover her, the voice rasps.

Something inside me comes off its chain.

I start with her wrist. The one he grabbed. I can smell his gunpowder scent pressed into her pulse. I bring it to my mouth and drag my jaw along the delicate skin, slowly, until there’s nothing left of him. Her breath stutters. I press a kiss to the place where her pulse is jumping, and move on.

Her hair, where that carrion brushed his beak. My fingers slide into her copper curls, so carefully. The sharp points of my skelva part the curls without snagging a single strand. (Bone-fingers)

She makes a small sound and leans into my palm.

I work my way down. Her temple. The curve of her jaw. The slope of her shoulder. Marking her in long, slow passes of bone and breath until the Horsemen are nothing but a memory the wind took.

By the time I reach her throat, she’s trembling. Her heartbeat is a wild, sweet thrum against my mouth, and her fingers have curled into the leaves at my shoulders hard enough to bruise the foliage. The sounds she’s making are unraveling what remains of my patience thread by thread.

More, the voice demands. She should carry us on every inch of her. She should walk through the world and have every living thing know⁠—

“Sage?” she breathes. “The Horsemen are gone from my skin. I can’t feel anything but you.”

“I know.” I drag my mouth up the column of her throat, and the last of the wrongness burns away under my breath. “I’m not finished.”

Can you smell that? The voice purrs inside me. My tongue falters as the realization crashes over me. She’s wet.